Brooke Shields: ‘As a child, I was like a little shark sensing blood in the water’
Photograph: Getty Images

There’s very little about fame that’s attractive. The pluses are mainly monetary – I can help friends and family. To be able to say to a friend who’s in trouble: “Don’t worry, I can pay your rent” is a privilege.

I never had the shock of losing all my privacy. I started in showbiz at 11 months old and it’s always been my reality.

My mother’s alcoholism kept me on the straight and narrow throughout my childhood and teen years. I was a caretaker to a drinker. I didn’t have time to consider going off the rails myself – all I wanted to do was to get A’s in school and keep my mum alive.

I didn’t understand the furore around Pretty Baby [in which Shields played a prostitute, age 11]. My mum was furious. I remember her saying: “Did you like what you did?” I said yes, so she said: “Then fuck ’em if they can’t handle it.”

Michael Jackson and I were very close. He was the first to get in touch when my dad got sick and the first there when he died. We went through a lot together, but I’ll always remember how we laughed. I was devastated when he died. I felt like a zombie.

I was ready to go down in a ball of flames to become a mother. It took seven rounds of IVF to get pregnant with my daughter Rowan. It made me a crazy person – I was so focused on having a child that I couldn’t see anything else. Totally selfish, but I needed to create a family for my own sanity.

Children have the sharpest instincts. They tend to be wary of adults they don’t feel comfortable with. I can tell whether someone is genuine immediately and I’ve been able to do that from a very young age – I was like a little shark sensing blood in the water.

Cannes Festival in 1978 was one of the worst experiences of my life. Pretty Baby was nominated for the Palme d’Or and I remember being terrified, caught in a huge crowd, a pair of scissors appearing from the corner of my eye as a fan tried to cut my hair off. I’d never experienced that sort of vicious adoration.

Postpartum depression is the hardest thing I’ve had to get through. It still colours the dynamic I have with my daughter. I feel residual guilt. At the time Tom Cruise criticised my use of antidepressants and therapy very publicly. The one thing I can thank him for is that it raised awareness of the illness.

I’m a New Yorker through and through. It’s where I grew up and where I live now. That meant I wasn’t constantly with people in the entertainment industry – I had a proper foundation, surrounded by my father’s family. It’s probably the reason I’m relatively sane today.

I no longer talk to my ex-husband, Andre Agassi. The last time we had an exchange he asked me to look at his book and change the bits involving me according to what the truth was. He ignored me anyway and made it look like I’d sanctioned his version. There’s no anger, but he had the opportunity to reach out when my mother died [in 2012], and he didn’t.